


Five Times Crowley Tried to Seduce Aziraphale, and One Time He Didn't

by htebazytook



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 1960s, First Time, Humor, M/M, Pre-Apocalypse, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-31
Updated: 2011-10-31
Packaged: 2017-10-27 15:30:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htebazytook/pseuds/htebazytook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>After the Cuban Missile Crisis doesn't pan out, Crowley figures seducing Aziraphale will land him a commendation.  Crowley temps; Aziraphale thwarts.  And I've clearly been watching too much Mad Men.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Five Times Crowley Tried to Seduce Aziraphale, and One Time He Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> After the Cuban Missile Crisis doesn't pan out, Crowley figures seducing Aziraphale will land him a commendation. Crowley temps; Aziraphale thwarts. And I've clearly been watching too much Mad Men.

_**Five Times Crowley Tried to Seduce Aziraphale, and One Time He Didn't**_  
 **Title:** Five Times Crowley Tried to Seduce Aziraphale, and One Time He Didn't  
 **Author:** [](http://htebazytook.livejournal.com/profile)[**htebazytook**](http://htebazytook.livejournal.com/)  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Disclaimer:** <\--  
 **Pairings:** Crowley/Aziraphale  
 **Author's Notes:** After the Cuban Missile Crisis doesn't pan out, Crowley figures seducing Aziraphale will land him a commendation. Crowley temps; Aziraphale thwarts. And I've clearly been watching too much Mad Men.

Nobody in the office has any idea what Crowley's job is. Come to think of it, Crowley could only offer vague guesses himself. What mattered was the view from the 31st floor, the air of big business decadence, and the respect of his colleagues. Well, fear, at least.

His office is the picture of modern luxury, equipped with only the finest leather chairs, a touch-tone phone, and a radio that's mysteriously free of static. The ledge by the window displays the most exuberant, if petrified, houseplants in Midtown.

Crowley's girl, Mary Sue, sits efficiently at the desk. Everything about her is efficient—her hair, her hospitality, her ability to scare off unwanted appointments when necessary. Come to think of it he isn't 100% sure of her name—she just _looks_ like a Mary Sue, and in Crowley's world that means it must be true.

" _Mr. Crowley_ ," she buzzes him. " _There's a gentlemen here to see you. Mr.—I'm sorry, sir, I didn't catch your name? Oh, how exotic! Is that French? Oh, why thank you, you're too kind, sir . . ._ "

But Crowley has a sneaking suspicion he knows who it is. Mainly by virtue of the fact that he very seldom gets any visitors. Most people are too intimidated to presume to actually speak with them.

The door swings in followed by a terribly outdated Aziraphale.

"A bowler hat? That is _so_ last century, angel."

Aziraphale sighs. "I'm sorry, would you prefer I walked the streets without a hat like you no doubt do?"

"I wear a _hat_ ," he says, affronted. "I just wear one that I don't have to keep intact through sheer force of will."

"Oh-Mr.-Crowley-I'm-so-sorry-I-tried-to-stop-him-I—" Mary Sue stumbles through the doorway.

Aziraphale catches her by the arm, dusts her off a little. "Are you quite all right, my dear?"

"Yes, I'm." She looks up and into the full force of Aziraphale's cordial concern and blushes as red as her painted lips. ". . . Fine."

Crowley rolls his eyes. "Right. That'll be all, sweetheart. Run along and type prettily or something."

Mary Sue nods, smiles at Aziraphale, makes her exit.

"There's no need to be so dismissive of her just because she's a woman," Aziraphale says disapprovingly.

"Uh, yes there is. It's the times. It's always been the times—where have _you_ been?"

Aziraphale just shakes his head, thinks the door shut and approaches the window. "Lovely view, you have here."

Crowley busies himself with pouring two glasses of scotch. He hands one to Aziraphale. "So. What brings you across the pond?"

"Oh, just business," he evades. "This and that. You know how it is."

"Business, eh?" Crowley downs his glass in one go. "Care to be a little more specific?"

"Not to you, I'm afraid. Sorry."

Crowley shrugs, but he's determined to figure it out.

"Well! Now that I _am_ here, why don't you show me the sights, eh? I must say I can't remember the last time I was in America . . ."

"Before it was America, I believe."

"Ah. Not too long then." He knocks back his scotch as easily as Crowley had. "Ooh, very nice, indeed. Now, why don't we take in one of those famed baseball concerts? Get the real New York experience?"

Crowley's eyebrows climb. "Uh, yeah. Sure. If you want to." It certainly promised to be entertaining.

*

When Crowley comes into the office the next morning there's a file on his desk marked 'urgent'. He buzzes Mary Sue.

" _Is there a reason why you didn't tell me I have an apparently urgent message when I came in? Was hanging up both my coat and my hat just too much multitasking for you today?_"

" _Mr. Crowley, I don't—I'm so sorry, sir, but I don't know what you're talking about—only thing that came in today was a memo and I just went ahead and threw that out, just like you'd said to—I'm so sorry, sir—_ "

Crowley closes the connection with a thought—by now he's gotten a good look at the file. It's smoking around the edges.

He braces himself and opens it.

"YOU'D BETTER HAVE A GOOD EXPLANATION FOR THIS ONE, CRAWLY."

The plants start to whither in fear—Crowley fixes them with a look that reminded them of who controlled their photosynthesis. "I do, lord. I assure you that I do. But do remind me again, what exactly did you need me to explain. . .?"

"THIS BUSINESS WITH CUBA AND THE WAR OF THE FREEZING TEMPERATURES."

It takes Crowley a minute to sort it out. "Ah. Well, nothing actually _happened_ , you know. Just was just a big, red scare, really."

"WE ARE WELL AWARE OF THIS. WHY EXACTLY IS IT THAT NOTHING HAPPENED? EARTH IS SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR JURISDICTION, IS IT NOT? WE CAN ONLY ASSUME YOU ARE _AWARE_ IF THE GOINGS-ON IN YOUR NECK OF THE WOODEN."

"Oh yes. Of course, lord. _Obviously_."

"WE ADVISE YOU TO TAKE YOUR DUTIES LESS LIGHTLY IN THE FUTURE. THIS WHOLE INCIDENT COULD HAVE ENDED IN THERMONUCLEAR WAR, AND WE ARE HAVING TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING WHY YOU DIDN'T PUT ALL OF YOUR ENERGY INTO ENSURING THAT IT DID."

"Well, I mean, I wasn't actually invol—I mean, you know. No need to rush things, right?"

There's a deafening silence.

"Ahahaha. Just a little joke to lighten the mood there, lord."

"YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR IS VERY INTERESTING, CRAWLY," booms the file. "WE TRUST THAT YOU WILL BE LESS CARELESS IN THE FUTURE." And it explodes into black flames on Crowley's rosewood desk.

He sighs. He'll never get the scorch marks out.

Crowley honestly hadn't had anything to do with the Cuban Missile Crisis. He'd just been in America at the time. In fact, he hadn't had anything to do with most of the more troubling events of the modern world. The Cold War, the police action in Vietnam—he was completely innocent, and Aziraphale claimed his side had nothing to do with any of it either. They'd arrived at a sort of mutual non-involvement of events that allowed either one of them to take credit if they had to. This way, they had too much to undermine one another with, and therefore they never would. It was mad, really.

It had worked out fine in the past, but lately Crowley had been getting a lot of heat for not pushing the wars of the last century or so to a more final conclusion. And if Below ever knew that he hadn't so much ignored recent conflicts as actively helped to defuse them . . . well, he preferred not to think about it.

The thing was, Crowley had never been very keen on instigating war. Leave that to petty humans looking for an excuse to destroy one another. It certainly saved him the trouble, most of the time, but it was clear his superiors were growing impatient. Crowley wasn't about to start another war. He'd hated them practically before the beginning of time.

No, he needed to impress Below with something more his style. The problem with that was that most of the really effective campaigns for mass human frustration were much too subtle for the likes of the dramatic Earls and Princes of Hell. He'd have to go old-school on this.

But he couldn't cause _too_ much trouble. Aziraphale would pester him about it for the rest of the century. Not that his superiors would buy that as an excuse. The value Crowley placed on his relationship with an angel was emphatically _not_ something that would impress them. According to them, any time spent with an angel should be spent actively tempting him. There wasn't much wiggle room, there. In fact, corrupting an angel was just the sort of old-fashioned, backward thinking temptation that _would_ impress them . . .

Buzzzz. " _Mr. Fell to see you._ "

Crowley smiles like a snake. " _Send him in_."

*

"You know what you are?" Crowley is saying. "You're one of those people who only gives out their local phone number. It doesn't even occur to you that there's such a thing as an area code, I'll bet. That's just the kind of person you are."

Aziraphale shrugs. "Well usually I don't use phones at all. . ."

"Never mind."

They're at some upscale hotel restaurant or other, the name of which Crowley really couldn't be bothered to remember. A waiter flounces over to their table and deposits an actual silver platter.

Aziraphale peers at it. "You ordered this?"

"Certainly. Why, have you a sudden aversion to oysters?" Crowley asks, picking up the bottle of Chianti they'd been splitting. "More wine?"

"Why yes, thank you."

"My goodness!" Crowley says. "Is it hot in here . . ." He shrugs out of his jacket, loosens his tie with an easy flick of the wrist and looks sidelong at Aziraphale. ". . . or is it just me?"

Aziraphale pops an oyster into his mouth, frowning. "I didn't think so, no. Perhaps it's the lighting? I know how that can affect you."

"Oh yess," Crowley says, unbuttoning the top two buttons of his impeccably pressed shirt. "I am most certainly _affected_. Aren't you?"

Aziraphale gives him a strange look across the table, like he's come across the kind of mentally ill person you'd be wise just to humor. He sips his wine slowly.

It's then that the violinist arrives. Aziraphale blinks rapidly. "Er."

"Live music? How romantic!" Crowley capers. He takes Aziraphale's hand. "What would _you_ like to hear, Aziraphale?"

Aziraphale turns the blinking on him. "Er," he repeats. "Bach? Oh, I should probably specify which—"

The violinist launches right on into an under-tempo rendition of something almost painfully familiar.

"Ah. Apparently not." He leans a bit closer to Crowley, then blanches at the dreamy expression on his face. "Do you suppose he knows that's a cello prelude?"

Crowley removes his sunglasses, carefully folds and sets them aside. He's put his head in his hands and is gazing at the angel. He really wishes Aziraphale would stop looking so terrified. "Who knows? But you must admit that this is lovely. The music, the . . . company." He experiments with a flutter of the eyelashes.

"You really oughtn't go around without your sunglasses. You'll frighten people."

"More wine?" Crowley asks, getting desperate. "Or dessert! We could split something. What do you say? Chocolate? Figs?" He draws a blank. "Asparagus?"

But Aziraphale's busy listening to the music. "They never played like this in Bach's day. It was so much simpler in tone, yet still more stylistic than the over-romanticizing these contemporary musicians seem to favor. Stokowski certainly hasn't helped."

"Yes, but isn't it romantic?" Crowley presses, in his most infernally persuasive voice, the one that made you believe whatever he said simply _had_ to be true, and what was the harm, really? It was just _fruit_ , wasn't it?

The one that Aziraphale had always been distressingly immune to. "It isn't their fault, really," he continues. "The instruments were so drastically different in those days, I mean, you simply can't create the same sounds on steel strings, sturdy though they may be . . ."

Crowley smiles a bit madly at him. "It _is_ cold in here, isn't it? Don't you find it cold in here?"

". . . Not a moment ago you—"

"I'm just saying, you know, if you _were_ cold, you could come over here and we might keep each other warm. And I mean, _I'm_ awfully chilly, I must say, so if you wanted to help a demon out, then, well. You see."

Aziraphale studies him for a long moment. " _Right_. . . I'll get the bill then, shall I?"

*

Okay, so clearly a little more focus was required. He shouldn't've underestimated Aziraphale's obliviousness. This time, he had a _plan_.

He picks Aziraphale up in his Cadillac outside the Carlyle, rolls down one top-of-the-line power window and shoots him a seductive look over his sunglasses. "Swell ride, isn't it?"

"A bit flash, don't you think?" Aziraphale says, but gets in anyway.

They pull out into weekend traffic. Not that it stands a chance against Crowley's determination to make it across town in time for the show.

"I say, does this car play nothing but Louis Armstrong?"

"Thankfully no," Crowley says, turning the radio on and influencing the song choice a little bit.

 _Moon River, wider than a mile,_  
I'm crossing you in style some day.    
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,    
wherever you're going I'm going your way.

Aziraphale shakes his head. "I'll never understand this greaser music . . ."

"This isn't. This is. Breakfast at Tiffany's? Hello?"

"I'm sure, I'm sure," Aziraphale says, clearly over the conversation. "What show are we going to, anyway?"

"Oliver."

"As in . . . Dickens?" Aziraphale asks doubtfully.

"Supposedly. Don't worry—you'll love it," Crowley insists, turning the volume up a little in the vain hope that some of it might sink in.

 _Two drifters off to see the world._  
There's such a lot of world to see.    
We're after the same rainbow's end--    
waiting 'round the bend,    
my huckleberry friend,    
Moon River and me.

"This is a smooth ride," Aziraphale admits.

"Yeah, and I can really book in this thing, too—the mill's bitchin'."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

Crowley sighs. "You are such a fucking square, angel."

During the show Crowley sits closer to Aziraphale than is strictly necessary, overflowing in his seat so that their knees touch and Aziraphale's thigh ends up pressed against his sometime during the second act. At intermission, Crowley jams his playbill down between the seats so he has to share with Aziraphale, leaning close with an easy arm about his shoulders, close enough that he can smell Aziraphale's hair and feel his heat.

"It was a fine performance," Aziraphale says when they're out on the streets again, putting on their hats in sync with the rest of the outpouring crowd. "Not nearly as overtly sexualized as so many of these _contemporary_ operas are." 'Contemporary' was a dirty word in Aziraphale's book.

"You mean overtly human?"

"I'll never understand the human fascination with sex. They may as well obsess over something productive, or at least _intellectually_ stimulating."

"Number one: if you take a look at the current population I think you'll agree it's terribly productive. Number two: stimulating, well, come _on_ , Aziraphale. And number three: do you see me going around belittling _your_ greatest achievement? Have some class."

"Oh. Right. Sorry about that." Aziraphale's walking in such a way that his coat brushes Crowley's audibly with every step. Crowley twitches—he hates it when people are in his space.

"What's your bag with sex, anyway? Besides the whole fall of man thing." This is probably something Crowley should get to the bottom of if he's to have any chance of success. . .

Aziraphale takes a minute to really think about it. "Well, I suppose it's not so much the act itself as the way it affects people. They'll be utterly lunatic, and blame it all on the power of love. They'll act without any regard for common sense, deferring always to the promise of physical pleasure instead."

Crowley laughs. "Yeah, okay, but how do you know it isn't worth it?"

"Its just crude," Aziraphale says primly.

"Well yes, but you've got to take the other stuff into account. The emotions, the thrill of the chase . . . There's an aspect of blind faith in there, which you ought to appreciate . . ."

" _I_ don't have blind faith. I've _been_ in His presence. So have you."

"You've blind faith in His true nefarious designs, then," Crowley snaps, then shakes his head and reverts to his smooth persuasive self.

"I'm just saying," he continues, depositing one hand on Aziraphale's forearm, which Aziraphale observes in confusion. "There's a whole other romantic dimension to it. The physical. . ." and he lets his hand trail down to lace his fingers with Aziraphale's for a moment.". . . gets mixed in with the feelings. . ." and he gives Aziraphale a long-lashed look over his sunglasses.

"Oh?" Aziraphale says boredly.

"You know how humans are. Nothing's _all_ bad. But you'll never _really_ know unless do too further research, will you? We've got to do our best to understand them, haven't we? And do you know, I'm actually fairly versed on the subject, so if you ever. . ."

Aziraphale's smiling interrupts him, somehow. "Oh, I don't know. I think I'll stick to my own jurisdiction and leave the research to the other Sons of God. You know, the ones that found the daughters of men so irresistibly fair in an Incident I think you'll recall . . ."

"Ah." Crowley feels a little guilty that he hadn't stopped to consider that.

*

This time, he had a _good_ plan.

"Bit chilly for a picnic, don't you think?"

"Nonsense. It's a veritable Indian Summer," Crowley shivers.

"If you say so. . ."

Crowley sighs. "Look, can't you just sustain yourself with the warmth of God's love or some shite?"

Aziraphale shrugs, miracles himself a rather opulent fur coat.

"You're quite the martyr, you know that?"

Aziraphale ignores him, snatches the picnic basket out of Crowley's hand—their fingers brush briefly warmly in the autumn air.

Crowley arranges the spread with a thought, less because he's showing off and more because it was rather elaborate: checkered blanket, brie and crackers among other fancy little appetizers, Beaujolais Nouveau, some roses in a vase in the center and some candles thrown in for good measure.

"The flowers are lovely," Aziraphale says, sitting down. "And rather sweet coming from you. . ."

Crowley smirks, about to say something utterly suave—

"They're symbolic of the Virgin Mary, you know."

Crowley blinks. "Maybe once. A very, very, obsolete time ago. But no matter!" He pours the wine for them. "Cheers."

"Mm." Aziraphale sips daintily, then sets his glass aside and reaches into the picnic basket to get some honest to goodness silverware.

"Pretty sure I didn't pack that," Crowley says. "Also pretty sure you don't need a fork for devilled eggs."

Aziraphale ignores him. They eat in silence for a while, which is a new and unsettling development. Crowley passes the time by attempting to drain the bottle of wine while Aziraphale just sits there looking serene and at home amid the flutter of dead leaves.

"Sometimes I wish it could be autumn year-round," Aziraphale says wistfully.

"Well, that would be impossible, wouldn't it? You can't have trees strung out in a perpetual state of dying just to appease your aesthetic appreciation for the color palette."

Aziraphale sighs. "That's why I said 'wish', Crowley." After a minute he says, "Central Park's all right, I suppose. It's just not home."

Crowley itches to agree, but there's no way he's going to give Aziraphale the satisfaction. He was only ever in New York for brief stretches of time, and he shouldn't miss London, but then Aziraphale had to turn up and _remind_ him that he might miss it a little and . . .

"At least it's something of a haven for diversity," Aziraphale allows. "And I must say that that's nice to see. America is awfully backward."

Crowley shrugs. "It's not so much unequal as separated. And anyway, this happens with every society, sooner or later. If they can't point out whoever's obviously different then they'll just start inventing the differences. It's just the way things are." It doesn't faze him, and Crowley doesn't understand why Aziraphale's so concerned about it— the angel had no trouble dismissing half of what Crowley said and did as evil by default.

"I know, but. . ." Aziraphale watches the easy mix of people pass them by. "Negroes don't even get a say in it. It's just what the more powerful group has decided. They never got the chance to defend themselves before they were labeled."

"Time honored tradition, that is."

"Well," Aziraphale continues, "things are on the verge of changing now, at least. Dr. King's speeches give hope to so many. Their day is coming."

"Yippee for them," Crowley says flatly. "Here, you went dessert or something?"

Aziraphale squints. "Is that. . .?"

"Devil's food."

". . . _Really_ , Crowley? I mean, _really_?"

"Yes, really." Crowley cuts out two slices, and Aziraphale tucks right into his as though he hadn't been protesting in the same breath.

"I should warn you that if you're trying to poison me it won't do much good. . ."

"I'm hurt, angel. I haven't tried to poison you in centuries. Really, does our relationship mean nothing to you? Damn this is good cake, don't you . . . ?" Aziraphale's staring. "What."

"You just have a little something, just there, icing I think—"

"Wait, here? Wait."

"No, to the left. No your other left. Oh, just let me." Aziraphale leans over the spread, nearly toppling the roses, and wipes away the offending smudge at the corner of Crowley's mouth with his thumb. His touch is startlingly, uncommonly warm against the weather. It's got to be an angel thing.

*

"It's the world's tallest bloody building, angel, how can you _not_ be impressed?" Crowley's patience is wearing thin.

Aziraphale peers through the railing. They're alone at the top of the skyscraper, having flown up under cover of night. Aziraphale's wings had wrecked his jacket, but even so he looked better than he usually did. More at home in his own skin.

Aziraphale shrugs, dislodging a few messy feathers. "It _is_ impressive. But it doesn't really hold a candle to the Tower of Babel, does it?"

"102 man-made stories," Crowley says. "The view of the city. The vastness of the sea away yonder. The stars within reach. . ."

Aziraphale doesn't buy it, moves past him to the other end of the observation deck and their wings get caught for one quietly shocking moment.

When Crowley finds him again Aziraphale's gazing pensively out over the city, which is oddly noiseless from so high up so late at night. "It _is_ impressive," he repeats, soft, like he's afraid of waking the world below. "Humans have come such a long way. Just think of the advancements we've seen over the last century, alone. It's hard to imagine how much further they can go from here. They've got _televisions_ , now. Instant communication from entire countries away. Just think of that."

"They have _color_ TV's now," Crowley points out. "They have the bomb and a bloody Catholic president. You'd think it's end of the world."

"Kennedy's no antichrist," Aziraphale dismisses.

"I don't know. Awfully charming, that one. . ."

"You're being absurd. He's _Catholic_ ," Aziraphale says.

Crowley raises an eyebrow. "I really don't think you'll want to go singing the praises of the Catholic Church, just yet. That's a doozy of a history to be wiped clean by one charismatic mick alone."

Aziraphale tuts. "There's no need for name-calling."

Crowley sighs. "Sorry to offend your delicate sensibilities, _angel_." Does Aziraphale think he's ever called him that in a _non_ -derogatory sense?

"Anyway, it's too good to last, if you ask me. Most things are."

"No need to infect me with your cynicism, either," Aziraphale says mildly.

"I'm just saying—it's not gonna last. Something's bound to tarnish his shiny coat of hope and change. A scandal, I should think. . . oh, don't look at me like that, _I'm_ not about to stick my nose into American politics. There are some things even the likes of me won't stoop to."

"I didn't say anything."

He doesn't have to. The subtle edge of his disdain for pathetic, fallen angels comes across just fine. "Your wings are a mess, you know," Crowley says, just to assert some subtle disdain of his own for pathetic, original angels.

"I don't fly all that much anymore. They've got airplanes too, you know."

"That's not really what flying's about," Crowley says. He's fascinated with the cool night-painted look on Aziraphale's face as he watches the city around them. Aziraphale looks fundamentally angelic, which isn't as irritating as it normally as. He won't look at Crowley.

Crowley reaches out to put one of Aziraphale's remiges back into place. Aziraphale fails to suppress his shiver.

"Come on. Let's see if you remember how."

"Oh, don't you tempt—"

"Come fly with me," Crowley says. He pulls Aziraphale up into the air with him, over the tall railing so fast that Aziraphale has no choice but to spread his wings and follow.

Aziraphale recovers quick, catches up to him even quicker. Crowley can see his surprised grin even in darkness, everything dim and desaturated. They swoop above Manhattan, over 34th Street and between the skyscrapers like giddy children. Aziraphale doesn't say a word, but Crowley can practically taste his enthrallment. Crowley chases retreating white wings high over the now empty streets. Plenty of people see them, but none of them even consider the possibility of what they're saying, and so their mortal brains efficiently dismiss it.

Soon it's over and they've landed on the observation deck again. It's because Crowley's out of breath and exhilarated and beset by stupid human thoughts colored by Aziraphale-flavored impulses that he says, there, below the moonlight and above the city lights, "I love you." Because that was a truly devious and underhanded scheme the whole night had been hinging on, most likely. And it was just crazy enough to work . . .

Aziraphale smiles. "Yes, and I love you too, Crowley," he says. "But I could die for a drink. What's open, this time of night?"

Crowley facepalms.

*

Crowley decides to give it one last shot — what he's really got to do is play more to Aziraphale's strengths and less to his own.

Crowley takes Aziraphale's coat before he's even completely inside his office.

"Do sit down," Crowley says, gesturing at a sleek leather couch.

"Was that, er, here before?"

"Details, details . . . now, won't you join me?" Crowley practically drags Aziraphale down onto the couch with him. "Tea?"

"Why, certainly. I'll take—"

"Three creams, three sugars, yes, got it, very numerological of you." Crowley's snapped it all into existence halfway through Aziraphale's sentence.

Aziraphale takes the proffered teacup skeptically.

"Oh! I'd nearly forgotten," Crowley says, like he hadn't forgotten at all and had just been waiting for an opening, which he had been. "I found this—" He'd miracled it. "—the other day—" Ten minutes ago. "—and thought of you." Well, it was a book. You couldn't not.

Aziraphale turns the colorfully-bound volume over in his hands, flips through a few pages idly. "Ah yes. _Contemporary_ poetry."

Crowley realizes he's just throwing vague hobbies of the angel's at him at random, like an actor rushing through his lines to get to the really juicy bits, but he's also banking on the unexpected and rapid assault of books and tea to bewilder the angel into falling madly for him over the course of the next five minutes or so.

Shockingly, it doesn't seem to be working.

"It's Cummings," he says loftily, hoping that the snobbery of it might win Aziraphale over.

"Frankly, I'm surprised you haven't attempted to recite something at me yet."

"What—whatever do you mean? I'm sure I don't—"

"What _are_ you trying to say?"

"I'm—"

"Out with it, Crowley."

"I love you," Crowley tries again in desperation, almost looks around to see who'd said it before he remembers it's all a part of the Plan.

"I don't love you," Aziraphale says.

"Ah. Well—"

" _I do not love you_ ," Aziraphale continues. "Except because I love you; I go from loving to not loving you, from waiting to not waiting for you. My heart moves from cold to fire. I love you only because it's you the one I love."

"Ah," Crowley says, baffled.

"I hate you deeply—"

"Well, _yeah_ —"

"—and hating you bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you is that I do not see you but love you blindly." Aziraphale looks so serious, so calmly serious it reminds Crowley of when they'd been real enemies rather than co-not-quite-friends.

" _Ah_ ," Crowley says again, since it's apparently some new trademark phrase of his.

"This lovely Chilean poet named Neruda," Aziraphale says. "If we're going to talk about contemporary poetry. Of course it's originally in Spanish, but the English translation has a certain quality to it, don't you think?"

His face has got this glowy quality that has nothing to do with halos. It's utterly disconcerting. Crowley leaps off the couch to escape it, walks over to his desk. "Never mind with the blessed poetry. I've got something better."

As he pretends to rummage through the drawers he catches sight of the scorched rosewood again and is reminded that he's supposed to be on a mission, here.

He's also reminded that something as frivolous as seduction could result in something not at all frivolous for Aziraphale. It's a possibility, but then again Crowley feels sure that Heaven would've come down on Aziraphale a long time ago if they were ever going to— between the misplaced flaming sword and the Arrangement and his unholy affinity for books . . . it just seemed unlikely that a little spit-swapping would be the final straw. But you just never _knew_ , did you? And I mean, who would he _talk_ to if something happened to Aziraphale? Was it really worth risking it just to get an infernal pat on the back? Seriously, who _would_ he talk to? Everybody hated him.

Crowley emerges with a suitably old and dusty book and presents it to Aziraphale.

"Oh, that's terribly thoughtful of you, Crowley," Aziraphale says. "Too bad it's a fake, or, more precisely, a replica you created not two minutes ago—but I _do_ appreciate it, of course. It's the thought that counts, after all."

Crowley opens and closes his mouth a few times. Aziraphale stands and takes the book, kisses Crowley on the cheek like it's something they do all the time and says, "Well! I'll leave you to it, then, my dear." And he leaves. And Crowley feels tricked, somehow.

Buzzz. " _Mr. Crowley?_ "

" _What?_ " he snaps.

Nothing. " _Er. Hello?_ "

Mary Sue enters his office, hands clasped in front of the giant white buttons on her dress. "Mr. Crowley. I just think you should know that . . . and you know I'm very discreet, sir . . . it's just that it's very clear that Mr. Fell fancies you, too."

Crowley remains impassive for a minute. He _is_ running out of ideas. . . "What makes you say that?"

"Well, I mean. . . he came all the way here to see you, is all. That's gotta mean something."

*

"What on earth are you doing here?" Aziraphale asks, rather comically startled.

"Me? What are _you_ doing here? It's bloody October. It's _London_."

Aziraphale shrugs from the park bench, closes his book and stows it impossibly in his coat pocket. "It's quiet," he defends. "And it's lovely."

"It's cold," Crowley says flatly, about to go on a sarcastic rant when Aziraphale stands, abruptly close.

When Crowley looks at Aziraphale he remembers that same slightly confused, slightly all too knowing expression against the backdrop of ancient dead cities or on ships or chariots, in hot sandy holy land or dark northerly castles. He wonders what Aziraphale sees when he looks at him.

"Are we done, then?" Aziraphale asks.

"Pardon?"

Aziraphale gestures between them. "This ridiculous charade of yours. Are you quite through?"

"I don't know what you're—I mean—" Crowley sighs, defeated. "Don't get your feathers in a twist about it, I was just . . . look, you win this round. Seeds of my own destruction. Etcetera, etcetera . . ."

"So you _are_ finished?"

"Yes. I guess. Look, I _said_ I was sorr—"

Aziraphale kisses him.

Crowley closes his eyes automatically, and behind the lids flashes every instance of kissing Aziraphale the past: saying goodbye in his office; saying goodbye on the Rue de Rivoli sometime just before the Revolution; giving him mouth to mouth after a stupid, water-based fight; their lips catching accidentally during _another_ fight; getting drunk for the first time and launching himself at the angel in a crowded Persian tavern. Aziraphale had consequently shoved him rather forcefully into a throng of prostitutes, which really hadn't been what Crowley was getting at. They hadn't spoken again until the Crusades.

In the present, Crowley stumbles forward just as Aziraphale is doing the same, and they knock heads for a minute before fitting their mouths back together, Aziraphale with a demanding hand fisted in Crowley's hair, now. Crowley tilts his head with some effort against the pressure of the kisses to pry Aziraphale's mouth open a little, bite at his upper lip and insinuate his tongue like he's never got to before.

Aziraphale doesn't seem to mind, sucking Crowley's tongue into his mouth like he is, pulling Crowley in hard by the hips and moving so sinuously. Huge gorgeous eyes peering lazily at him between kisses, but _heated_ , and Crowley wonders just how often Aziraphale's thought about this. Aziraphale's like stirringofbirds between his arms.

Something shifts, the ground beneath his feet, and when he opens his eyes they're in Aziraphale's upstairs room, all yellow-lit and slant ceilinged. Dusty white curtains over the window that filter the late afternoon sun into a perfectly heavenly glow. Crowley's about to say something but Aziraphale is kissing him again, and kissing Aziraphale is like that sharp burst of flavor you get in your jaw when you have eaten anything in a while, only it lasts and lasts.

It's because it's been on Crowley's mind so much lately—this must be why it's such a relief to finally kiss him, to finally just know what Aziraphale kisses like and that Aziraphale wants him too. That is, that he wants him— _that is_ , that Aziraphale wants _him_. Yes.

Aziraphale is so unexpectedly deft with his hands, so self-assured as he holds Crowley firmly still that Crowley is suspicious. And maybe a little jealous—clearly someone had been the recipient of Aziraphale's deft and self-assured kisses in the past, and Crowley wonders why it hadn't been him.

"Stop squirming," Aziraphale chides, then shoves Crowley up against the wall rather thrillingly. Crowley can only groan and scrabble with Aziraphale's unyielding clothes for purchase. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? This is what the flowers and the poetry was all about? I'm not an idiot, you know—I'm not _naïve_."

"No," Crowley admits. "Just immune to my charms, evidently."

Aziraphale smiles wickedly. "Well. Apparently _not_. . ." He yanks Crowley close again. Crowley murmurs appreciatively into the slow open-mouthed kiss that follows, light brush of lips and deep searing swipe of tongue and frantic humid exhales.

They meander in the direction of a clearly never-used bed, bumping into one another but that's exciting in itself. Crowley falls back on the mattress and Aziraphale follows so willingly, falling together so naturally.

Crowley can't identify the feeling that's overtaken him—so insidiously blended with pleasures and exaltations, so defined by the sight/feel of Aziraphale. He thinks he can recognize it, thinks he must have felt it once a very distant time ago.

He twists his leg around Aziraphale's to urge him closer, presses his hips up and Aziraphale sure is quick on the uptake now that they're actually _doing_ this, isn't he? Aziraphale was never as clueless as he let on. Aziraphale was moving suggestively against him — no, not suggestively, _explicitly_.

"I'm curious," Aziraphale says, and everything grinds enticingly to a halt. " _Do_ you love me?" Oh, he looks positively evil. He is _being_ positively evil. Crowley wants to rip his throat out as much as he wants to suck at it until Aziraphale moans for him.

"I'm a demon."

"Oh?"

Aziraphale has taken to moving his hips against Crowley's again, staring into him with such brilliantly otherworldly eyes. Pangs of homesickness mingle with lust and gather somewhere in the vicinity of Crowley's stomach. Crowley presses his face into Aziraphale's neck, dizzy. "Aziraphale. . . _please_. . ."

"I'm sorry?" Aziraphale breathes, apparently unable to stop shifting against him. "Oh, this is so strange. . ."

"Uhngf, I'm, I, just, _please_. Come on." He kisses at Aziraphale's neck in an attempt to get his point across.

"My dear, really, you will have to be more specific."

But Crowley's lost his patience. He gives a sort of growl and pushes Aziraphale onto his back, ignoring his indignation and divesting him easily of his clothes—well, not so much divesting as wishing into unreality. Crowley's own clothes have disappeared somewhere along the way, too.

And really it seems that Aziraphale's known all along what Crowley had been getting at because he's let his hand trail down Crowley's chest and _mmm_ over his cock before dipping to pry him open with magically slicked fingers. His other hand lingers to grip Crowley's cock loosely, which isn't very effective but it elicits little anticipatory jolts of pleasure and Crowley is hopelessly entranced . . .

"Hey, easy!" Crowley says, after the addition of a second finger so soon.

"Oh hush. I don't believe for a second that you're inexperienced. Just— _Crowley_ —just _relax_ , will you?"

" _I'm_ experienced, _you_ clearly aren't," Crowley protests, but he's becoming distracted by the way Aziraphale's fingers have crooked just so.

"And why would you assume that?"

Crowley struggles to focus past the lazy spread of pleasure through his limbs. He grabs the closest bit of the angel—his shoulder or something—and pushes down for more. "Whatever. I'm wrong, you're right—it's the way of the world. Just keep doing that, yeah?"

But Aziraphale doesn't keep doing that, he instead arranges things so that it's suddenly his cock suddenly in him suddenly hard and miraculously easy and Crowley's eyes roll, a bit dramatic, but it's that overwhelmingly yes/good/somuch.

"Why do people do this?" Aziraphale asks dazedly, utterly flushed and inside him. He can't seem to find a place for his hands.

Crowley pushes his hips down, leans to kiss him, lifts and bears down and Aziraphale makes the most un-angelic sound into his mouth, holding Crowley still to meet him for every slow disjointed thrust.

"Ah. I see," Aziraphale says when Crowley stops kissing him to gasp at the newly excellent angle they've found.

"Yes-yes-yess," Crowley hisses, has to brace himself with fists in pillow and head against Aziraphale's shoulder.

"This is . . ."

" _Yess_."

"I need . . ."

"So fucking go for it."

To Crowley's dismay Aziraphale pushes him away for a minute, only to topple him onto his back and scramble back on top of him and fuck deliciously back inside. Crowley's head lolls off the edge of the bed a little and Aziraphale kisses his exposed throat and drives into him harder, more. . .

He can't get enough of this open, empty feeling—letting down his guard and submitting and trading thought for physical. He wants to be undone like this forever, wants it until it's too much.

Amid wonderful, hyperbolic bursts of pleasure Crowley watches: Aziraphale's expression is half shocked and half enraptured, and he keeps opening and shutting his mouth, his indefinable eyes and Crowley's got to nudge under Aziraphale's head for more kissing, sinks into the feeling of Aziraphale sinking into him, slow and hesitant but, _God_ there it is—that the moment where everything turns sharply in the direction of orgasm—Aziraphale hitting something just right at just the right time after just enough before.

"Ah _shit_!"

"Oh dear, are you quite all right?" Aziraphale asks in disoriented concerned, slowing his thrusts a little but seeming to shake with the effort of holding back.

"Yess yes. Very all right. Just. . . can you. . . _harder_."

"Oh. Yes." Aziraphale does it.

Crowley doesn't think he's ever been this turned on. It certainly has to do with the fundamental taboo of it—there's little that can really get a demon all hot and bothered, let alone a demon with such extensive experience with human depravity as Crowley, but here he was, desperately aroused at the sexual mercy the most insufferable angel he's ever met. It's infuriating. And he's completely fucking _obsessed_.

Aziraphale detours to kiss at Crowley's neck and Crowley arcs up into it, arcs his hips up too and closes his eyes against the blooms of pleasure prickling through him. "You're so," Aziraphale says, damp-hot breath over damp-cold skin. " _Enthusiastic_. . ."

"Mmrgh," Crowley agrees, urgently. "I may have to kill you if you come to your senses and stop," he adds.

"Discorporate," Aziraphale mutters, just as urgently. He's fucking him so hard it's moving them ever farther off the edge of the bed, and Crowley wonders if he'll come before they both fall to the floor, of if they'll just keep going once it inevitably happens, or if—

It's so focused. Every intricate piece of conversation, every meaningful look or meaningful thought, the whole vast web of seduction and attraction, symbols and truths—it's all melted down into this single focused pulse of pleasure, sweaty and straining and purely good. He's never felt like this and he's always felt like this.

Aziraphale doesn't say anything when he comes, just tightens and tenses everywhere, lost in it. Still lost in it when he catches Crowley eye unseeingly. Crowley lasts about a second after that.

*

"So here's a question," Crowley says, panting at the slanted ceiling beams. "If you were so keen on scoring with me, why didn't you do anything before? You know, when I was wining and dining you?"

"Oh, we've been wining and dining one another for years, my dear. But I've got to thwart you, don't you see. What kind of angel would I be if I just succumbed to your every wile?"

"An angel who's a beast in the sack, apparently."

" _No._ " Aziraphale sighs. "You're being deliberately obtuse, Crowley."

"Okay okay, fine. I know what you mean. Fascinating, the way temptation's okay as long as _you're_ tempting _me_."

"Well, it is." He doesn't sound very confident. "By definition, I _can't_ tempt you. I'm simply not capable."

Crowley laughs. "Coulda fooled me."

Aziraphale sighs again, annoyed, opens his mouth to speak but Crowley silences it with a kiss instead, and really, they should've come up with this solution ages ago.

*


End file.
